LEARNING CURVE: American Culture and the Muslim World

As Americans struggle to confront economic and fiscal dilemmas at home, they are also reexamining our role as the lone global superpower. As they do so, one of their most elusive challenges is coming to terms with the cultural dimension of their engagement with the Muslim world. This is in part because cultural forces are downplayed or ignored by their intellectual and foreign policy elites. This neglect is regrettable, for while there are aspects of American culture that Muslims find problematic, or even repellant, there are others that they find appealing, even admirable. Once the financial system sustained by those practices and institutions came crashing down, it has been these same economically marginal families who have been suffering the most. It would of course be naive to deny that the aspirations of such individuals were at times tainted by poor judgment and excess. Nevertheless, pointing out that immigrant and minority aspirations contributed to the debacle should in no way be interpreted as blaming those who have lost their homes.